


in the sympathetic flesh

by sybilius



Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Blondie's Dramatic Entrances, Bodysharing, But also some consent issues, Explicit Consent, Hustling, Like. There is a small amount of character study idk, M/M, Manipulation, Multi, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Possession, Sexual Negotiations, Voyeurism, assholes being assholes, handjobs, mindfuckery, sexual masochism, uneasy truces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:36:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: The struggle leaves me with two things. First, a sharp, intimate awareness of the labyrinthine space in which a soul may couch himself in this vessel. Enough for me to carve out a fair portion of the mind to allow him space of his own, but with very limited control over any movement or physical form.Second. My cock is now hard.





	in the sympathetic flesh

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Confeitor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17677274) by [deepandlovelydark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark), [sybilius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius). 



> deepandlovelydark writes amazing fics and I'm over here in the peanut gallery like. What if they FUCKED.
> 
> Anyways, thanks D for letting me play in your sandbox <3

“... Going to try and catch us some game. Memory serves I’ve got about two hours before the storm kicks up to fever pitch again. Last time we tried to leave, nearly got us killed in that wind coming back. Don't try anything.”

I leave off from studying the cracked mirror, my face (I suppose it would have to be), now clean and smooth. Well. Not as smooth as last I saw it, yet smoother-- the maps of age then having marked the particulars of Ramirez’ skin.

Question is, can I really call it _myself_ who remembers those marks so intimately? But then, does it matter when it’s not as if there’s any way to check my memory, but to let the years carve us up as it may --

\-- carve _me_.

“It’s hardly as if I know where I might go. I barely know where you've shacked us,” and again use of the plural almost sends a shiver through me. Ramirez has for the moment retreated, at least. Let me keep up appearances. Or perhaps biding his time.

For now, it’s almost pleasant to get used to the singing winter chill on his sun-darkened skin.

Blondie cocks his head, “You don't? Guess I never gave that much thought to how that worked. Your-- appearances.”

“My will binds me to the object of my haunting's vengeance,” too much satisfaction, in seeing the ever so slight reaction he offers, the sneer in his barely lined temple. Last I saw it was etched and greying, “Simply put, when I can manifest, it is where you are. And I know not how you came to be there.”

“Tch. After all it took to shake you off.”

“How much time was it, between appearances? It took substantial effort, making myself corporal. And time in that liminal space is-- implaceable,” his tongue, mine -- it sits in the mouth differently. Stranger even than speaking as a ghost, when I bother to dwell on the specifics.

“Long time,” Blondie falls back on terseness, but doesn’t manage to conceal his regret. Now, how much sincerity there is in that --

“When I said 'don't try anything’ I mean there's no way in hell you'll find anything resembling a weapon in here neither,” he places his Navy in his holster meaningfully.

“You wound my creativity,” I manage to find the twang of derision, “And my curiosity. As to what exactly you're proposing.”

“... thought I made that clear.”

I raise an eyebrow. When he'd propositioned me mere hours after I’d taken on the new flesh (barely had gotten comfortable with the truce, and beating back the occasional attack of strain on my consciousness) -- well, it was hardly in good timing.

But then, I could certainly say after years of catching half-scenes of Blondie and Tuco’s theatrics-- it was the man whose flesh I now wore that bore that grace.

A small shock of pride tingles in my chest. _So still present, are you?_

“For the moment, what I said stands,” I’d refused him, insisting on further effort to familiarize myself with the body, “Then you should have nothing to worry about, I can neither travel nor make particular attempts at weaponry. Not until I’ve had you.”

That much, there’s no half nor concealed truths in. Thirty years it’s been craving pleasures of the flesh, and to see Blondie vivid and new before me, in a body that sings towards his every movement -- well. It's pleasure and weakness both.

His lips part, now is it lust in my eyes or _his_ that has that effect on Blondie. Then he turns sharply. The door shuts hard behind him, a resounding crack.

And against my will -- something holds my breath -- _ChristoSantaMaria damnation_ \--

His throat gurgles unpleasantly, his hands clawing at my face -- his own, _good god, you want to take us both down together_

_If that’s what it takes amigo --_

Our body tumbles to the ground, seized in a wreck as our consciousnesses fight for as much territory as possible --  

_\-- now I remember you foolhardy, specifically when it came to Blondie’s whims, but never recklessly so --_

Shoulder blades tense unnaturally -- as if wings could sprout from them, as if, a cough of a laugh -- _is that a joke you made, Ramirez, about my name of all damn things --_

_\-- not as if you’re calling me by mine --_

The body gasps, we both remember to breathe, leaving the lungs for truce. He sets the left arm to swinging, _Christo_ I can feel him take possession of the right leg -- _no._

Thirty years of twisting the fabric of space itself to contain my _phantasma_ and I am _not_ going to let the chance I have at a life slip from my fingers.

The fingers that aren’t mine grasp into a hard fist, I dig them into the palm, letting the spark of pain fill the fibres of this body with every inch of my imperishable nature.

_Yes._

The struggle leaves me with two things. First, a sharp, intimate awareness of the labyrinthine space in which a soul may couch himself in this vessel. Enough for me to carve out a fair portion of the mind to allow him space of his own, but with very limited control over any movement or physical form.

Second. My cock is now hard.

“ _Christo_ , now this is unexpected,” I say, now that the tongue is mine again. My breath is ragged, all the desire I'd kept carefully under wraps staring at Blondie. Inconvenient.

_Couldn’t have guess you would swear in Spanish._

_Fronti nulla fides,_ “Might have said _Christus._ ”

 _What was that, Latin? Acerrima proximorum odia._ My body twitches at the tendrils of his consciousness expanding. _Huh. Neat._

_Try that again and I'll --_

_\-- you'll what? Come on._

He's right, _Christus_ (and I have to exert effort to not slip into his tongue)-- I can threaten very little, with this little information.

_I've given you a generous portion of the space. I could be less generous._

_Call this generous? You bastard, it's my body?_

_Was._ I make a point of this by dragging the body off the cold wood of the floor, unable to will the arousal out of my every movement. Was it really this overwhelming, when I'd been alive?

_Jacob y Esau, you've been dead for like a week. Memory really go that fast?_

_Stop that._ I snap, but the memories of my years of hovering beyond the veil spread through me unbidden, and the greedy tendrils of his mind enveloping them.

 _Santa Maria…_ a strange flush of understanding breaks through the heat suffusing my flesh. _And we spent those years together? Christo, it was bad enough what he did with my gun._ That memory of the ineffectual click of empty chambers, the horror that followed-- oh yes, this was what I admired in Blondie. Vicious when it mattered. Still. With the sympathetic flesh, it's difficult not to pity Ramirez’ fate.

_And what he--_

Sudden, sharp silence in the mind. Absence. I reach towards the part of the mind he resides in and am met with the memory of a heavy red-clay wall.

_Did you just think something I couldn't hear?_

The wall retreats slightly, a smugness that almost goes to the body's lips. _You lock me up, you lock yourself out, Angel._

Now that was an arrangement it was difficult not to be envious of. Considering I as yet had no idea how to provide the same privacy for my own thoughts--

\-- and moreover, the flesh was practically screaming to be touched, a fucking crippling distraction. I take a slow, shaky breath. Lie perfectly still. Thinking of the road's endless lines, of horse riding and bullets through the neck, not thinking of Blondie's arching back, _fuck--_

 _Listen, that blonde is driving me crazy in here too. And after thirty years--_ the wall crumbled a moment, emotion spilling over like bleak sunshine--

_Don't you dare pity me._

_You were just doing that to me!_

_And how you even thought of calling me Angel --_ that impudent lazy familiarity. God, if I could--

_Familiar, yes, that's you and I, Angel. Can't argue--_

_For the love of God, shut up._ I steel myself, trying to push back desirous tableau of lovers before Blondie. Ones I had believed I'd forgotten. I just need to get ahold of this body -- but I can barely fucking think --

_Listen. Okay, so maybe I feel a little bad for you, not getting a fuck for thirty years because of Blondie’s needing to play the hero. And maybe I know you’re a bastard who got what he deserved rotting in that grave._

_Credit where credit due --_  goddamn that he can tell I find that flattering, on some level.

 _\-- point is, you’re not the only one who’s desperate for a fuck, here._ The walls lower just that much further, enough for a few lewd images of himself and Blondie _in flagrente delicto_ to slip out. Carefully chosen, I’m sure. He’s a liar first and foremost by trade _. And I can tell you this much, Angel, my body gets all nervy when I don’t fuck on the regular. I’m not used to that._

 _Don’t think I can’t hear the way you’re trying to deceive me. If I lose myself to passion -- who’s to tell who might gain the upper hand._ It’s a gamble he’s banking on too. Though I suppose if I threw myself in the freezing snow a moment --

_Sure, but do either of us really have a choice here? Let’s get this over with._

_Of course you have a choice--_ my own words from a memory, the one night Blondie and I spent together. I’d stopped him as he’d bitterly mumbled near the same question Tuco had. Then he’d admitted to wanting it -- had taken me with a clumsy insistence on proving his strength that had been an exquisite mix of pain and pleasure--

 _Oh, Blondie fucked you?_ A hard burst of heat through the body. _That’s -- okay, not what I was expecting._

 _It was my preference._ The roll of heat through his body intensifies. _That is_ not _helping the situation._

 _It’s helping you get over yourself so we can get this done._ And then, he figures, maybe fuck Blondie later -- this is already getting so far out of my hands.

I _have a choice, and the fact remains that I don’t trust how much power you do or do not have over this body._

 _Listen, you want me to show my hand? Fine--_ unbidden, my left hand reaches into loose fitting pants, squeezes and the whole of the body _shivers_ with wanting, all thoughts razed from my mind with the force of a sandstorm. He squeezes again before I get ahold of my tongue, barely.

“Are you -- going to give me a choice here --”

The hand loosens -- silence, but I suspect -- taking bodily control has cost Tuco more effort than he’s willing or, perhaps able, to articulate. I relax my vice grip on the boundaries of mine (our?) mind, let him respond.

_No, you’re right. Wouldn’t do that and -- glad you’re not a bastard enough to do that either._

“Don’t stop.”

“You mean that?”

“For god’s sake, don’t _speak_ , just--” I can’t tell if it’s his cry or mine that breaks off the words in our mouth, but he’s found a messy rhythm and _goddamn_ if it isn’t everything the body needs.

Mine, I feel, would have responded differently -- the pace too languid and not at all quick, and one hand tracking down my spine towards my ass --

 _Jacob y Esau_ , _please stop thinking about your dead body while I’m trying to focus on mine._

_If I’m to assume you are always the one fucking Blondie, as your surprise suggests -- have you never explored that? I find it to be far more pleasurable._

_I’ve had a few women who know how to handle a man’s ass. It’s fun but -- a lot of work to do myself, and I figure Blondie wouldn’t be that good at it-- shit--_

I’ve managed to twist his right hand (my dominant. His?) into his pants, dug the index finger hard in the pucker of the ass. Pain sparks through, intensifying the sharp contrast of pleasure--

_Stop that, it’s no good without some oil -- hurts._

_Pain is the perfect foil to pleasure, I find._ But I let up, in deference. He’s surprised, at how his body responds with an almost disappointment to that. How quickly we begin to blur--

_God, you and Blondie must have been a pair, no wonder he wanted you back soon as he’d shot you._

_Not that soon_

_Right._ I choose not to comment, this time, on the bizarre sympathy he seems to hold for my fate. _That bag that's mine, I've got some oil in there. If you have to do this for it to feel like you --_

He relinquishes control of the right hand, and I slide off the bed quickly, shucking off his pants, finding the glass bottle and coating my fingers with it. When I return to the bed I make space for him to take the left hand eagerly -- _with what strange bedfellows_ \-- but am not in the least regretful when his slow rhythm rekindles the building heat in his hips. My fingers travel deeper, brushing that unnamable core that sends pleasure ripping all the way to the edges of the skin.

 _Mierda_ , _all right, you are good at that. Even with my body._

 _It’s not so differe--_ the thoughts are obliterated from my mind when two things happen simultaneously. Tuco’s hand twists on his cock in a remarkably skilled manner ...

...and the door howls open, to reveal Blondie carrying a meager rabbit. He blinks, the cold hollowing our partially naked body like a knife. Then noticing the wind, falls back to indifference, shoves the door shut.

“So. Couldn’t wait to be rid of me, huh,” he smirks, leaning against the latched door.

“Familiarizing myself -- with the body on my own terms,” I gasp, and then:

“It’s not all about _you_ , Blondie.”

I can’t bring myself to disagree with him. Blondie’s eyes narrow, but none the wiser, “Well, I’m not going out in that storm, if you want me to stare at the wall for a minute--”

“Don’t mind if you look,” now even I can’t tell who’s gotten hold of the tongue to say that. What’s certain is that his blue ( _green_ ) eyed gaze redoubles the stake, when he looks into Tuco’s eyes like he’s seeing the stranger --

\-- and I’m not even certain he’s seeing me --

But never mind, he’s hard in his pants and Tuco sees that as well as I, picks up the pace as the body’s hips drive deeper into my fingers. The body can’t take much more sensation, his fingers squeeze us tight one last time before the specter of death rips its way through us both.

Yes, it’s just Blondie’s shit timing again, that he’s come too late for either of us to put on a show.

Damnit, is that thought mine or his?

 _Think it’s mostly you._ To my surprise, he’s tacitly retreated to the boundaries I set out. Just before the aftershocks of pleasure wear off, before his well-made walls go up again -- I catch the distant thought --

_Blondie’s got a plan with this. He always does. He knows, he wouldn’t -- leave me no chances --_

I cough, my lips turning down. _Fucking hell, Tuco. You can’t possibly give him that much credit._

But it’s no difference. Like shouting up to the ramparts of a high castle, where the inhabitants have retreated to the inner chambers.

It is, in retrospect, a small space I’ve allowed him to have. I could loosen the boundaries of his landscape, and still be mostly confident he’d be unable to assume control of the body without my putting up a fight for it.

I meet Blondie’s eyes slowly, shaking Tuco’s come off my fingers.

Well. Why take the risk?

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Comments and thoughts very welcome!!


End file.
